mad in pursuit :: green valley memoirs

Responding to yesterday's entry, Bubba says, "I
think what Helen was suggesting was that you live and create the mythology
instead of understand it." For him the land made magic -- milk into butter, sap
into syrup, children into people. I have to ask myself: Did I feel any
of that magic? Is my storytelling here merely a bunch of amusing
anecdotes about the early 70s or am I reaching for something more
"mythic"?

Unlike Bubba, I wasn't well integrated into the orderly chaos of farm
life or the rhythms of nature. I avoided the garden, I shied away from
the maple syrup rotations, and I was terrified of cows. On my single
bike-riding foray, I was attacked and bitten by a dog -- twice, both
going toward the village of North Branch and
again returning home. I kept secret stashes of M&Ms and escaped whenever
possible to the Roscoe Diner for their menu of evil delights.

If I were to hang my hat on any mythic structure, it would be Joseph
Campbell's "hero's journey" -- if you buy the premise that we're all the
heroes of our own lives.

Green Valley was the passage between Chicago and Rochester. In
Chicago I was a girl with beautiful ideas gleaned from literature and
religion. I intended to make a grand contribution to the good of
humanity but didn't have a clue
how. I was desperately underemployed. My love life was going nowhere.

Rebirthed out the other side, I was married and soon enrolled in graduate
school in Community Health -- a complete career redirection.

The journey in between was your typical dark odyssey. Oh, sure, there
was fairy dust, but the trip also had its share of Ogres, Sirens, and
chattering Serpents. 24 hours a day of challenging children, close
quarters, mix-and-match relationships, rural isolation and too much
alcohol made for scary moments. I was going to say that Paul played the
role of a classic Guardian figure for me. In part it's true,
because I learned a lot from him, but he was no Obe Wan Kenobi. His
position of authority let me hide when I should have been led to
experience more. Like all imperfect creatures, he was interested in my
growth only insofar as it brought me closer to him.

Does a baby think she will be in the womb forever? Did Jonah try to
make a home for himself in the whale? Somehow I thought it would go on
forever... I would be the headmaster's woman, cooking sewing, baking
bread, doing the bookkeeping, diligent at figuring out ways to get kids
to read... And then poof, Paul bought us a car and we drove away.

Green Valley School was a residential program for
troubled kids and a sixties-style commune for its staff. I arrived at Green Valley School in Orange City
Florida in February 1971. Around May, Lee Ricketts and I drove 10 kids
north to the Catskills to start our own little farm adjacent to GVS'
Buck Brook Farm. I left the Green Valley family, with my future
husband, in August of 1972.